Double Chocolate Day

There's a guy that Duncan works with, P, who's allergic to eggs. I used to feel guilty every time Duncan took some of my baking to work - it all had eggs in it, and P couldn't have any of it. So, Amazon to the rescue. I found a book on baking wthout eggs (Bakin' Without Eggs by Rosemarie Emro), and started baking a few things from it, which seemed to be fairly well received. But then I sort of stopped baking as often, and things didn't go to work with Duncan.

However, P recently helped me out with sourcing a good price on my Dad's birthday present. He's good at that kind of thing, among all the other stuff he does to help people out, and I figured he deserved a little thank you. So I dug out the egg-free baking book, and whipped up a batch of the chocolate muffins that had gone down so well before. Apparently they went down pretty well this time too - not just with P, but with everybody else there too. So well, that I'm making another batch this weekend. Although, for variety, I plan on using Green & Black's Maya Gold cocoa, instead of their plain cocoa powder. Hopefully that should give a slight orange spice taste to them.

As the chocolate muffins were going to work, I thought we might need something else chocolatey to stay behind. This time, it was out with the not-quite-so-bad-for-you baking book (One Smart Cookie by Julie van Rosendaal), and into the chapter on brownies, where I picked a simple plain chocolate brownie.

Recipes:

Chocolate Sour Cream Cupcakes
(Adapted from Bakin' Without Eggs by Rosemarie Emro)
225 grams plain flour
50 grams cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
225 grams sugar
250 ml sour cream
125 ml vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
125 ml soda water

Preheat oven to 350F/180C Placu muffin cases in muffin tin.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder. Add the sugar and mix through.
In a jug, beat together the sour cream, vegetable oil, vanilla and soda water.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir until completely mixed.
Divide between muffin cases.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.


Easy Cocoa Brownies
(Adapted from One Smart Cookie by Julie van Rosendaal)
50 grams unsalted butter -- melted
200 grams caster sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon instant coffee granules -- dissolved in 1 teaspoon water
140 grams plain flour
50 grams cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 350F/175C. Line an 8x8 inch pan with non-stick baking parchment.
In a large bowl, mix together the butter and sugar until well combined.
Add the egg, egg whites, vanilla and coffee. Stir until thoroughly blended and smooth.
In another bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt.
Add the dry ingredients, together with any optional additions, to the egg mixture and stir until just combined. Do not overmix.
Spread the batter in the pan. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes, until the edge is starting to pull away but the middle is still slightly soft. Do not overbake.
Cool in the pan. Cuts into 16 pieces.

Marmalade Cookies

I found a jar of marmalade lurking in the back of the fridge. As toast is a rarity in the house these days, I figured it was a case of either use it up in baking, or throw it away. Luckily, I had this recipe from One Smart Cookie marked as one to try, so this seemed like a good reason to do it.
As usual, I've modified the recipe from volume to metric measurements. How did they turn out? Very well. They have a slightly crisp edge, with a chewy middle. The marmalade is a definite part of the taste, so use one that you like. It might be worth experimenting with different kinds of marmalade too - I may be trying this with a lemon and lime one at some point in the future, although I'll need to change the spicing if I do that.

Recipe:
125 grams porage oats
125 grams plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
50 grams unsalted butter
75 grams demerara sugar
75 grams light muscovado sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
125 grams seedless raisins
100 grams orange marmalade

Preheat oven to 350F/175C. Line baking trays with non-stick baking parchment.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.
In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugars until well combined. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until smooth.
Add the marmalade and mix until combined. Mix in the raisins.
Add the oats and flour alternately, mixing well between each addition.
Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto the baking sheets. Flatten fairly well.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden.
Makes 24.

Carrot Cake Cookies

Bit of an upside-down day today. We went out for lunch to a very nice place just down the road, from us Windlestraw Lodge. The occasion was Dunk celebrating the 'end' of his diet, and the food there was certainly a fit way to mark it. I'm not going to attempt to review it, but if you are in the area and get the chance to eat there, take it.
Since I knew we'd be eating a richer than usual meal, and as we're still eating through the three Easter eggs (and will be for a few weeks yet), I fancied making more healthy-feeling 'hidden fruit or veg' baking. So this week, it's something picked up from Julie van Rosendaal's blog. It's a recipe for Carrot Cake Cookies, for the new edition of One Smart Cookie - which yes, I'll probably be buying, and donating my current copy to someone else (no idea who yet).
Anyway, as usual I made one or two minor changes. First thing, I've started converting recipes to metric measurements. I brought down the amount of sugar slightly, and used hazelnuts instead of walnuts, because I had them in the cupboard and wanted to use them up. The result? Little drops of carrot cake. These are not firm like you'd expect a cookie to be, but more cakey in texture. The nuts I used give just a hint of nuttiness - using more, or using different nuts would still be fine. The overall verdict? Definitely a recipe to keep.

Recipe:
50 grams unsalted butter
75 grams caster sugar
75 grams dark muscovado sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100 grams plain flour
100 grams plain wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
150 grams grated carrot
75 grams raisins
25 grams chopped hazelnuts

Preheat oven to 350F/175C. Line two baking sheets with non-stick baking parchment.
In a medium bowl, combine the flours, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cinnamon.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugars together. Once combined, beat in the egg and vanilla extract.
Add the flour, carrots, raisins and hazelnuts a bit at a time to the wet ingredients, mixing between each addition until just combined.
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the baking sheets, flattening each cookie slightly.
Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, until golden on the edges and just cooked in the middle.

Banana Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

After last week's muffins, I felt like cookies this week. Well, actually my first thought was chocolate, but I figured since it was Easter last week, maybe I should leave the chocolate alone, and go with something else. Something that I could convince myself was vaguely healthy, or at least not totally devoid of any nutritional benefit. So flicking through One Smart Cookie, I found a recipe that fitted the bill: banana oatmeal raisin cookies.
Now, I'm not sure these turned out for me as they're supposed to. Oh, they're definitely delicious, but, as you can see from the picture, not exactly a cookie. To me, a cookie is fairly flat. Maybe with some bumps, but definitely a disc of a fairly even thickness across its area. These did not turn out like that; they pretty much stayed in whatever shape they were when they went into the oven. From the directions in the original recipe, I think they are supposed to spread. So maybe I missed something, maybe my modifications changed things a bit. Whatever happened, I certainly enjoyed the results.

Recipe:
175 grams porage oats
100 grams plain flour
25 grams plain wholemeal flour
125 grams raisins
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
50 grams unsalted butter
75 grams caster sugar
75 grams dark muscovado sugar
150 grams mashed banana (about 2 medium bananas)
1 egg white
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350F/175C. Line some baking trays with non-stick baking parchment.
In a medium bowl, combine the oats, flours, raisins, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cinnamon.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until combined.
Add the bananas, egg white and vanilla to the butter and sugar. Beat until well blended.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet a couple of tablespoonfuls at a time, mixing each until only just combined.
Drop generous spoonfuls of the dough onto the prepared trays. Flatten the cookies slightly.
Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, until the edges are golden and the cookies are just set.

Corn Muffins/Chocolate Chip Cookies

Two lots of baking done this week, one savoury and one sweet. Both of them seem to have turned out well; they certainly met with approval.
The corn muffins first. This is corn as in cornmeal - polenta. Now, I've made cornbread before, a long time ago, and I no longer have the recipe I used. So when I came across a recipe for these (fairly low calorie) cornmeal muffins in a book, I wanted to give them a go. Of course, the recipe called for one thing I've never been able to find - buttermilk. Normally, I'd substitute yogurt, but here I thought I'd try a tip I came across, and use the same quantity of milk mixed with a bit of lemon juice (1 tablespoon lemon juice made up to 1 cup with milk is, I believe, the suggested mix). It seemed to work, although I didn't use exactly that mix.
The mix seemed OK, although the muffins didn't rise quite as much as I'd hoped - maybe I did overwork it. They also stuck to the muffin cases a bit, so if (when) I do this again, I think I'll bake it in a cake pan lined with non-stick parchment, and cut it into pieces. They certainly went very well, still warm out of the oven, with the lunchtime soup.

This isn't the first time I've made these chocolate chip cookies, and if my experience with them so far is anything to go by, it's a very forgiving recipe. Cookie recipes that make more than can be fitted on a single tray need to get baked in multiple batches in my oven. Last time, the first batch turned out pretty perfectly. Luckily, as they were destined for my Dad. However, the second trayful weren't so lucky. After taking the first lot out, I'd done my usual thing of turning the oven up to a higher temperature than is required for the baking, so that when I open the door to put the tray in, it falls down to the correct temperature. I must have been distracted, because I turned it up more than usual. And forgot to turn it down again when the cookies went in. Oh dear. Well, they got whipped out of the oven a bit before their time was up, a bit browner that they should have been. And they still tasted OK. Some of them were on the verge of being singed, but nothing too bad. These went to a different set of recipients, who were apparently quite happy with them.
Nothing so dramatic with this lot. I made another change to the original recipe, besides my original substitution of golden syrup for corn syrup; the use of part wholemeal and part plain flour. I thought it might give an extra bit of texture and flavour to the cookes. It seemed to work. Another thing I'm trying with this recipe is freezing half the mix to be baked later. No idea if it will work or not, but I wanted to give it a go.

Recipes:
Corn Muffins (from 'The 1200 Calorie a Day Menu Cookbook, Nancy Hughes)
2/3 cup plain flour
1/2 cup cornmeal (I used quick-cook polenta)
2 teaspoons caster sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup skim milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 egg white
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 450F/230C. Put 8 muffin cases in a muffin tin.
Place the milk and lemon juice together in a bowl. Note: you can use 3/4 cup plus one tablespoon fat-free buttermilk instead of the milk and lemon juice.
In a mixing bowl combine the flour, polenta, sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
Whisk the egg white and oil into the milk.
Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Pour in the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
Divide the mixture between the 8 muffin cases.
Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the tray immediately.

Chocolate Chip Cookies (based on one from One Smart Cookie, Julie van Rosendaal)
50 grams unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons golden syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
70 grams dark chocolate, chopped (I used Green & Black's)

Preheat oven to 350F/175C. Line two baking sheets with non-stick baking parchment.
In a large bowl beat butter and sugar together until well combined - the mixture will end up with the consistency of wet sand.
Add the vanilla, syrup, and egg. Beat together until smooth.
In another bowl combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Add the flour mixture and chocolate chips, a third at a time, to the sugar mixture, stirring after each addition until well combined.
Drop spoonfuls of the dough, well spaced, onto the baking sheets. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes, until golden and the outside is set but the middle is still slightly soft.

Dark Chocolate & Ginger Biscotti

Well, last weeks's honey rhubarb muffins went down well. Can't say the same for the rock buns - I'm really not impressed with them. Any of them left at the end of this week are going out.
So, another biscotti variation this week (again, based on One Smart Cookie). In the mood for some dark chocolate, and having some crystallized ginger in the cupboard, it seemed natural to put the two together. I wasn't quite brave enough to play around too much with the basic biscotti dough, so I settled for just chopping up the chocolate and ginger and adding it as chunks. I think it works quite well. You get something different with each bite - sometimes a bit of chocolate, sometimes a chewy hit of ginger, sometimes a bit of both. Maybe if I make these again, I'll try a chocolate dough, but all in all I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

Recipe:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter -- softened
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
50 grams crystallised ginger, chopped finely
75 grams dark chocolate (I used Green & Black's, 70%), chopped

Preheat oven to 350F/175C. Line a baking sheet with non-stick baking parchment.
In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until smooth.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the ginger and chocolate to this mixture.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet. Stir until just combined. If it seems dry, use your hands to complete the mixing until the dough comes together.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Divide in half. Shape each piece into an 8 inch by 3 inch rectangle.
Place the logs fairly far apart on the lined baking sheet.
Bake for 20 - 25 minutes until firm and starting to crack on top. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for about 15 minutes.
Reduce the oven temperature to 275F/135C
Cut each log into 1/2 - 3/4 inch slices (12 slices per log) with a sharp knife. Place slices cut side down on the baking sheet.
Return to the oven for 15 minutes, then flip over and bake for another 15 minutes.

Lemon & White Chocolate Biscotti

Another recipe from One Smart Cookie. I've still got brownies left from last week (although very few), and biscuits from the week before, so I thought I'd better make something that will last for a while. Having baked dark and rich things for the past couple of weeks (chocolaty brownies, treacly biscuits) I also wanted something a bit lighter. I've tried making biscotti in the past, but wasn't too happy with the results. I think these have turned out a bit better.
The book gives a basic biscotti recipe, and suggestions for a number of variations. Having a lemon in the fruit bowl, and a bar of Green & Black's white chocolate in the cupboard, that's the one I went for.
Forgive the mixture of measurements in the recipe; some are from the book, some are my measured additions.

Recipe:
30 grams unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated
100 grams white chocolate (Green & Black's)

Preheat oven to 350f/175C. Line a baking sheet with non-stick baking parchment.
In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until smooth.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest.
Add a few tablespoons of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Stir until combined. Add the chopped chocolate and mix well. Continue adding the flour mixture, a few tablespoons at a time, stirring until just combined. If it seems dry, use your hands to complete the mixing until the dough comes together.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Divide in half. Shape each piece into an 8 inch by 3 inch rectangle.
Place the logs, well spaced on the lined baking sheet. They will spread slightly.
Bake for 20 - 25 minutes until firm and starting to crack on top. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for about 15 minutes.
Reduce the oven temperature to 275F/135C
Trim the ends and cut each log into 1/2 - 3/4 inch slices (12 slices per log) with a sharp serrated knife. Place slices cut side down on the baking sheet.
Return to the oven for 15 minutes, then flip over and bake for another 15 minutes.

Fruit & Nut Double Ginger Cookies

This is the first recipe tried from a new book - One Smart Cookie. It's a low-fat baking book, but not one full of strange ingredients, or recipes you wouldn't want to eat. It also doesn't use artificial replacements for normal ingredients; if you want sugar, you have sugar, not some chemical replacement. My only problem with the book - and it's not a big one - is that being an American/Canadian book, all of the measurements are in cups. Being British, I'm more used to grams/ounces.
Anyway, the recipe I tried was Fruit & Nut Double Ginger Chews. I made a small change to it - not having molasses, I used a mixture of golden syrup and black treacle. Not sure if I got the proportions quite right; I'll have to wait until I get comments from others who try the cookies.

Recipe:
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup
1/2 cup black treacle
1 large egg
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup raisins
1/3 cup walnuts, chopped
1/4 cup crystallized ginger, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 175C. Line some baking sheets with non-stick baking parchment.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg, then the the golden syrup and treacle. Mix thoroughly.
In another bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients.
Gradually add the dry ingredient mixture, a couple of tablespoons at a time, to the wet ingredients. Stir between each addition to ensure everything is well combined.
Drop large spoonfuls (level tablespoons/heaped dessertspoons) of the mixture onto the baking sheets, making sure they have room to spread. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, until set.
Unless you have a large oven, you'll probably have to bake these in multiple batches.